Multimedia documents are typically considered to be digital rather than physical objects—typically, they are provided on a digital media carrier (such as a DVD) or downloaded from the public internet, and then rendered or otherwise executed as data in a plurality of data formats (for example, an html document comprising within it text, audio in an audio format, images in an image format, or video in a video format). Such documents are typically for display on a PC.
It is known (see the applicant's earlier International Patent Application Publication No. 00/03298) to provide a copy of an image on a chip attached to a printed copy of the image as a way to recover the image if the printed copy is damaged. It is also known (see WO 00/03298 and the art discussed therein) to annotate still images with sound. Some books have pockets holding CDs or DVDs containing ancillary material to be played on a CD or DVD player, or a PC. US Patent Application No. 2002/0170973 describes enhancement of printing paper with RFID chips adapted to provide copy control information.
It is generally appreciated that a physical book or magazine is a far more satisfactory form factor for a user to view data (in particular text) than the screen of a PC. It is therefore desirable to preserve this as a form factor for viewing text at least, but also to attempt to achieve the flexibility of data provision achievable with a digital multimedia document.